Photograph of the Santa Clarita Golden Oak Wins First Place in City of Santa Clarita Summer 2016 Photography Contest
Aphoto taken in honor of the Santa Clarita Golden Oak, a native plant living for hundreds of years in the Santa Clarita Valley, won first place in the Santa Clarita Summer 2016 Photography Contest. This contest was open to all amateur photographers and many excellent photos encapsulating the theme of Santa Clarita were entered.
I am the proud winner of the contest with my submission of the photo entitled, “Santa Clarita Golden Oak at Sunset.” My name is Lauren Nemeschansky and I am a local long-time Santa Clarita resident and Realtor. I enjoy exploring
all areas of the world in search of great shots for my nature photography collection. Many of my photos are of the desert areas of Nevada such as Death Valley, Bryce Canyon and The Valley of Fire. I also enjoy taking sunset photos of the Pacific Ocean with its many interesting rock formations and colorful coves. However, the Santa Clarita Golden Oaks have a special place in my heart because they have a beauty and history of survival that rivals any natural wonder of our world.
The Santa Clarita Golden Oaks are not only beautiful and provide moisture and oxygen to our air along with ground cover, but they are a very important part, symbolically, of the history of Santa Clarita. They have adapted over many years to the extreme elements of Santa Clarita’s hot summers, cold winter nights and clay soil. Many of these Golden Oaks are several hundred years old and have provided food and shade for Native Americans and explorers. The native Alliklik people who lived here for hundreds of years, long before America was discovered, soaked the acorns in an acidic liquid and ate them as the main staple of their diet. They also used the bark and branches of these tough and hardy trees for utensils.
Explorers enjoyed the beauty and shade of these lovely trees and were often so inspired that they wrote about them in their journals. For example:
There before us was a beautiful meadow of a thousand acres, green as a thick carpet of grass could make it, and shaded with oaks, wide and branching and symmetrical, equal to those of an English park. Tears of joy ran down our faces at the sight.” – William Lewis Manly and John Rodgers, 1849.
The Oak of the Golden Dreams, located in Placerita Canyon, is said to be the discovery place of gold found accidentally when onions were being dug up. According to legend, this discovery started the California Gold Rush. These unique looking trees have been used as backdrops in the scenery of the filming of many famous movies.
As Santa Clarita developed into a suburban city with a booming housing market and a growing need for business structures, many of these graceful giants were destroyed. Community groups such as The Oak Tree Coalition and The Santa Clarita Valley Planning Advisory Commission were established in the early 1980s and fought hard to protect these trees. The Santa Clarita Oak Tree Ordinance and the City of Santa Clarita Oak Tree Preservation and Protection Guidelines were adopted by the City Council on September 11, 1996. All of us and our future generations can enjoy sitting in their shade and taking photographs of these truly magnificent trees.